What back pain treatments are available at Ramsay
At Ramsay Health Care we offer a range of treatments including
injection therapies and spinal surgery. Your consultant will be
able to tell you which treatment is best for you.
Injections
Injections which relieve pain and allow other therapies a better
chance of working are an important weapon in the armoury of any
consultant looking at back problems. They can also give your
consultant important information about where the pain is coming
from and how bad it is.
These injections are done as day case procedures while you
are under sedation, and you would be able to leave hospital within
a few hours.
While they don’t ‘cure’ your bad back, they can help your
recovery. For a start, you may not be in so much pain and any
inflammation may be reduced, and your quality of life should
improve. And you are likely to get more benefit from other
therapies, such as physiotherapy, if they are done during the
window of opportunity after an injection. Sometimes the pain does
come back over time and the injections may need to be repeated.
Two types of injections commonly used are facet joint injections
and epidurogram and nerve root blocks.
Facet joint injections
Facet joints are the weight bearing joints in your spine which
are created when two vertebrae sit on top of each other. There are
many reasons why they may become inflamed and painful, and
sometimes injection therapy can be useful in relieving this. You
may need to see one of our physiotherapists after this to help
address the possible causes of the pain, such as poor posture,
weakness or a prolonged period of bed rest affecting the spine.
Epidurogram and nerve root blocks
Persistent back pain can sometimes be due to irritation of the
nerves in your spine. This can be caused by tissue adhesions and
may be associated with former trauma or surgery to the spine.
Injecting the area around the nerve root with a mixture of local
anaesthetic and an anti-inflammatory called cortisone can be an
effective way of reducing the pain in these cases. A diagnostic
procedure called an epidurogram is used to allow the consultant to
build up a picture of your back and see where the injection would
spread. Then the mixture is injected into the appropriate
areas.